Microsoft confirms services fully restored after major global outage

Detailed summary

Microsoft stated that the disruption was due to a ‘technical issue not related to cyber or AI agents’

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Microsoft has confirmed that full service has been re-established following a widespread global IT disruption that affected schools, courts, businesses, police forces and the NHS.

The technology company announced on Saturday morning that functionality had returned for all remaining users affected by one of the most severe IT failures in recent years.

In a statement on its Microsoft 365 status page, the US-based firm stated: "We have completed our efforts to address the underlying issue of the incident and restored service to the remaining impacted customers and regions.

"Further updates can be found at MO1550821 in the Microsoft 365 admin center."

Addressing the cause on Friday, Microsoft stated that the disruption was due to a "technical issue not related to cyber or AI agents".

Users reported that Microsoft 365 services, including Outlook, Teams and AI assistant Copilot, were interrupted. Downdetector, an online tracker, said it received outage reports from users in more than 70 countries and territories.

The outage affected governments, courts, healthcare services, businesses, airlines and banks in many places. Governments including those of Japan, Singapore and Australia reported that the hours-long episode had impacted some of their operations.

Emergency measures were activated by the UK government and international authorities, with Microsoft working to recover messaging, email and key services after they began failing around 6pm GMT on Thursday.

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